Jaymi Zents

Biography

The relationship of decay and beauty underlies most of my work in drawing, sculpture, and photography. Frequent references to classical sources, combined with delicate care in the making, define beauty, while decay is found in the details. The frailties of the flesh, its rashes, stains, scars, and the stress of everyday functions create narratives. The inherent conflicts of the body- constant renewal, self-preservation versus the self-destruction of aging, and the cautious alliance of immunity to vulnerability inform many of the figures. It is the notion of the contaminated within the pristine. These dualities mark where my interests lie.

Preservation of the rare and\or beautiful, whether medical specimens, taxidermy or photography (from memorial to fashion) reveals ties amongst apparently disparate practices. Treatment of a single subject virtually demands containment and separation.

The carefully lit, perfectly pinned and posed figures in a fashion magazine easily give way to medical science's decisive images of the diseased and deformed. Memorial photography holds the two genres firmly together. Similarly, the most delicate and rare within a bug collection is carefully pinned, labeled, and placed beneath glass. The isolation of any subject suggests a distinguishing factor suitable for honor. The carefully crafted and embellished frames used to protect 19th and early 20th century memorial photos recall the gilded and jeweled reliquaries reserved for pieces of saints.

Even the 'Pickled Punks' of carnival bear qualities of reliquaries, as do the jars of preserved pigs and fetuses at home in the biologist's lab. Jars and frames, labels and boxes are all used to contain, define and preserve these subjects, to in some way, thwart their demise. Regardless of how undignified or cold the context, each of these genres dictates a degree of honor given the interest, concern, the time and effort taken to protect and preserve them. It is this strangely detached brand of nurture and possession, which has affected my work for the past several years.

Influences range from the aforementioned memorial arts, medical texts, and fashion photography to Gothic, Renaissance, and several contemporary works. Doll making has also had an impact to the sculptural work, unifying classical elements to a more approachable medium. Dolls evoke memories of childhood, and serve as effigies, their deterioration mirroring that of humans. Even the most synthetic doll succumbs to some form of self-destruction once played with by human hands. Barbies™ 'bruise' from touching one another too long and the inevitable shoebox of extremities and heads certainly lends to the metaphor. In the end, it is a sense of possession and covetness, but also of protection and nurture of some body no one else may ever find of value.